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that's all for us tonight. time now for anderson cooper. good evening, everyone. 10:00 on the east coast and we begin with breaking news and a warning for tens of millions of you out there. three simple words that could save your life. do not travel. that's because if you do, you could get stuck in this. if you do, rescuers could get stuck trying to reach you. that warning by the way comes straight from the national weather service. texas, oklahoma, kansas, all getting hammered by a storm even more punishing than the one last week. we're talking about more snow in some places than people have seen in the past 42 years.

and in one part of oklahoma drivers are stranded with snow piling up to six feet high in places. details on the drivers and the storm they're stuck in from chad myers in the weather center. chad. >> anderson, if you left too late to get home from work or wherever are you coming from, school, whatever, you very well may have had a very hard time getting home because the snow totals are coming down so fast. amarillo in 24 hours picked up 19" of snow and all the way down to woodward, oklahoma, wasn't even snowing this morning. they're 15, and it is still snowing and it is still blowing around. some of these winds 60 or 70 miles per hour creating 5 and 6-foot drifts and we're hearing some of the plows are coming off the roads again and can't clear them and can't do anything with it and as soon as they clear ten minutes later the drifts are back in again in parts of kansas and into oklahoma. this is going to be a very difficult night and i just can't stress any more what you just said, do not travel. do not go out. you could get stuck. the people trying to come to get those people are getting stuck.

they're sending bull dozers literally to clear the snow to get to the emergency vehicles trying to get to the people that are stuck. it is not a night to go outside in the high plains. >> i was trying to figure out the first image and it was a car buried under snow. it is amazing how quickly the snow is moving. we'll check back in with you later on in this hour as we watch the storm develop. i want to tell you about another storm, a storm of a different sort entirely happening now involves scandal, hypocrisy, conspiracy theories, dysfunction although and we're not talking about washington, d.c. this multi faceted storm involves the vatican and allegations about what could be going on behind the scenes there. there is a string of child sex abuse scandals surrounding some of those who will choose a successor to pope benedict and now a surprising allegations against a top british cardinal that some media outlets believe play some role in why the pope is stepping down, the first pope in nearly 600 years to do so. pope benedict's last day is thursday after which the college of cardinals will meet to pick a

new pope. as always they gather in secrecy and this time it is accompanied by open, loud controversy. today we learned the arch beneficiary off of scotland is stepping down after allegations he made unmented sexual advances allegedly to priests in training. he was supposed to be part of the conclave and now he will not be. cardin cardinal roger ma money i will be part of the conclave despite allegations of about his handles and victims say he should not be part of the group of cardinals saying it sends a terrible message. in addition to those two scandals there are explosive allegations about what may have been going on behind the scenes in vatican city. more on that now from ben wedeman. >> i will not abandon the church, benedict told the faithful in st. peters square sunday to the tens of thousands who listened and applauded it was a sentimental farewell. to investigative newspaper

journalist who has delved into alleged wrongdoing at the vatican, benedict's words carried different significance. >> translator: this does not mean to abandon. it means to fight, she says. last sunday he said we are fighting against the temptations of power. temptations that may have proven too strong for some. she is one of two journalists who have reported on allegations of vatican corruption and blackmail of gadwai clergy membs by male prostitutes and damning headlines in the rome daily, sex and blackmailes careers behind the resignation and compromised perhaps to senior levels says a writer for the "newsweek"ly panorama. >> cardinals.

>> si, cardinals. >> the details allegedly contained in a secret dossier prepared by three cardinals. he says he believes attempts by pope benedict at reform were stymied every step of the way by the church's secretive bureaucracy. in these eight years the pope has repeatedly made cause to stop the divisions, he says, to end the power struggles in the curia and have more transparency but these calls were not heeded. he claims it would be hard to deny the catholic hierarchy is in crisis. the latest blow, the resignation of cardinal keith o'brien who stepped down as archbishop of scotland amid allegations of inappropriate acts with four trainee priests in it is 1980s.

he remains a cardinal and says he won't attend the conclave to elect a new pope. allegations, accusations, and scandal darkening the final days of benedict's nearly eight-year reign. the two italian journalists paint a picture of a holy father overwhelmed by an unholy mess. aging, unwell and betrayed by those who are supposed to support him. benedict says he is not for saking the church but according to these accounts it is the church bureaucracy, faction ridden and weakened by scandal for saking him. ben wedeman, cnn, rome. hard to pierce the walls of secrecy surrounding the inner workings of the cat van and want to talk about it with christian amanpour and senior analyst john allen also there, a senior correspondent for the national catholic reporter. you say the idea of an existence of some sort of network of gay

men or priests or high officials inside the vatican is not i am probable but do you believe it is the reason the pope is resigning? >> no, anderson, i don't. i think for the most part you have to take benedict xvi at his word he is resigning because of his age and fatigue. on the other hand, i think you have to ask the question why is he so fatigued and i think at least part of that picture is that he has spent much of the last eight years frustrated that his efforts to be a teaching pope, to conduct a kind of global graduate seminar and the relationship between reason and faith and so on have been hampered by a endless series of crisis and controversies and meltdowns, some of them coming in from the outside and some of them self-inflicted. i think that is indeed part of the calculus, but fundamentally, i don't think there is some deep, dark secret. i think this is one of those cases in terms to what you see is what you get. >> john, what is known exactly

about o'brien? the allegations i have heard are a number of allegations apparently made by some current priests and even i believe one former priest of inappropriate efforts to have some sort of relationship or make some sort of pass at these people when they were priests and this is a guy who when the british government was considering gay marriage came out vehemently against it saying, and i quote, their attempt to redefine reality is given a plight hearing and the madness indulged and represents a grotesque aversion of the universally accepted human rights. if this guy was in fact making advances at other male priests, the level of hypocrisy is great. >> you're right. it almost defies belief that someone would be leading such a double life and yet taking such a hard line in public. of course it is important to say

cardinal o'brien has firml denied these charges. he has taken legal counsel, that is he's hired a lawyer to help him respond to these charges. so as this story plays out it remains to be seen how much fire there is beneath the smoke. i think what's relevant for the vatican at the moment is that this has resurrected the drum beat of criticism that it has faced over the years that its sort of moral preaching to the world about sexual rec at this tud, some cases not matched on the ground by the behavior of some of the clergy. >> it is interesting. there are some alleging that these revelations, these allegations are being made in a way to kind of influence who the next pope could be. how would that influence who the next pope could be? >> you know, this was perhaps i would have to say in my experience a typical lashing out by those who are trying desperately to have a better spin on this story right now. i don't buy that.

i think it is a typical defensive mechanism of people who simply don't want to hear the truth and the truth is if the church was trying to prevent a cardinal from coming here for a reason it couldn't, because there are so many of them, i mean, the disgrace of this really is that every diocese in the united states, it exploded across europe, under the ospices of or during the reign of pope benedict and i was told tonight that this is probably going on in diocese all over the world and one of the things that was incredible, one former priest said perhaps 50% of priests who enter the priesthood may be gay. i talked to a long time veteran journalist here in rome who said it is well known that monsignors and others in the vatican conduct affairs with women or men. the real issue here is there is a difference between having affairs and committing crimes

against young boys which is what happened under these priests for so many generations. >> what do you make of the church, the vatican coming forward and making a public statement saying essentially this is an effort to influence the picking of the next pope? that's an extraordinary statement for them to have made. >> their insistence is the secret dossier which allegedly talks about a gay lobby potentially having a role in the vatican scandal so far as we know has only been read by one guy and that's pope benedict xvi so the pre tense to know the contents may well be open to question. one could argue that some sort of response had to be made but i think the practical effect of using such high octane rhetoric in that statement is it that it is simply given additional legs to the story and made the hill the vatican has to climb to get over this that much more steep. >> thanks so much. just to have the latest on the

search at sea for a family including two young kids and the final message, we are abandoning ship. the latest on that search and the latest about the raw politics happening now in washington, d.c., the search and a sea of finger pointing for a deal to head off budget cuts at the end of the week. we'll be right back. [ kitt ] you know what's impressive? a talking car. but i'll tell you what impresses me. a talking train. this ge locomotive can tell you exactly where it is, what it's carrying, while using less fuel. delivering whatever the world needs, when it needs it. ♪ after all, what's the point of talking if you don't have something important to say? ♪ none of us think bad things are gonna happen to us.

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let's talk about raw politics and finger pointing because there's a lot of that going on. congress and the white house have less than four days to hammer out a budget cutting deal before painful forced spending cuts take effect. these are part of the cuts that both sides agreed to in 2011 to force themselves to do what voters and business leaders want them to, which is make a deal. have they? the answer is no. president obama has been touring the country, warning about pain from the automatic cuts.

republicans have been turning up everywhere saying blame for the cuts should be put on the president. bob woodward said the cuts were the white house's deal, but the white house should push back on that. at times it feels more fingers being pointed than hands to hold them or hammer out solutions. >> these cuts do not have to happen. congress can turn them off any time with just a little bit of compromise. >> if there is no leadership from the president -- >> unless the republicans are willing to compromise. >> he's been out trying to blame republicans. >> so the question is, why won't he work with us? >> they need to come to the table with a proposal. >> i think the american people are tired of the blame game. >> with us now, gloria borger, also contributors and two of the "new york times" best writers,. charles, let me start with you. you said this is an example, and i quote, feeble government at its most ineffective and self directive. destructive. . >> well written. >> thank you, i appreciate that. you said it perfectly.

they did this to force their own hands. if you can't force your own hand to do something that i cannot for the life of me find anyone who thinks this is a good idea, even the people who are basically saying, we will accept it. the republicans basically are calling the president's bluff at this point. they're saying we will accept the defense cuts because we want the rest of the cuts, but even they are not saying it's a good idea to have it, you know, this kind of blunt instrument used to cut. they think it's just acceptable, it won't be as bad as the president says. >> ross, before, though, the obama white house was thinking republicans would not be willing to accept these kind of defense cuts back when they came up with this idea, but now, clearly, a lot of republicans who are willing, because they say cutting the budget deficit is more important. >> right, i think five years ago, the obama white house would have been right. that was a different republican party, and the balance of power in the party has shifted from

defense hawks you might say to deficit hawks. so i disagree a little bit with charles. i think there are at least, there are some republicans who think this is acceptable, and there are also now some republicans who will say, you know, defense has to be on the table as well. and so we're willing to do it. >> but is it good for the economy, though, ross? can you find anyone who says in the short term, in the near term, this is good for the american economy to use this kind of blunt instrument to cut this much from the deficit? that this actually spurs the economy to do better and provides enough jobs or does it eat into the job base the way that most independents that i have read think it does? >> i think the republican argument would be that whatever short term pain it causes to the economy, steps like this, sort of these painful but necessary cuts over an extended period of time, are necessary to basically guarantee longer term economic growth, but that said, i think the problem republicans have is

the long term deficit problem is an entitlements problem, and we set up this mechanism where we're making deep cuts to discretionary spending. and not cutting entitlements, and there is i think the critique is fair. >> this isn't the big piece of the pie. this is the tiny sliver of the pie. the big piece is medicare, social security, things they're not even talking about right now. so this is not a natural disaster. this is a manmade disaster that they made. and now that they can't figure a way out of it. >> is a deal possible? what happens? >> a deal is possible. >> by friday? >> i'm not going to say that. i'm going to say sometimes -- >> i don't see that. >> i'm not going to say they can do it by friday. in the end, they can fiddle as they always do and say, you know what, we need more flexibility so we don't take a meat ax to everything so we can decide within a certain agency what is it we want to cut and then come back and deal with it gin again. >> charles, what do you say to the republicans -- i was listening to rush limbaugh, and

he said essentially this is a manufactured crisis, these aren't real cuts. this is still more spending than was spent last year. >> right, i think it's manufactured and real. like he separated it. >> but it doesn't all happen at once. >> they manufactured it and it's very real because it affects so many jobs. it has the potential to affect so many jobs. the estimates range from a million to 2.1 million jobs at risk in one source i quoted in my last column. that could add 1.5% to the unemployment rate. >> go ahead, ross. >> the thing where rush limbaugh has a point is if you look at the waves of quote/unquote cuts we have had over the last couple years, and you know, in dollar terms, they looked real. then when journalists go in and do an investigation and go to the different agencies and departments and so on, it always turns out they find a way to claim cuts. you know, claim cuts on things that they were going to cut

already and so on. there's more wiggle room in the federal budget often than those absolute numbers would suggest. >> ross, here's the problem. the public doesn't know what to believe because we don't actually know what the truth is here. if you look at all these fiscal crises we have gone through, you always have to consider what the default setting is. when you have the fiscal cliff, they couldn't go over the cliff because they didn't want to raise everybody's taxes. when you had the debt ceiling, they couldn't do that because the whole faith and credit of the united states was on the line. in this particular crisis, and this is why charles may be right, in this particular crisis, what's at steak here? budget cuts, which, by the way, a lot of people think is a good idea. >> in theory. >> do you see a deal by the end of the week? >> i have been wrong betting against deals in the past. so i don't -- you know, the story of the last two years is that, you know, john boehner, harry reid, barack obama, always find some way to pull a deal out of the fire.

so it would be silly to bet against that, but i agree with charles. it's harder in this case to see -- i think you can draw it up on paper, but it's harder to see where the parties come together. the reasonable thing to do would be to say, let's cut the amount we're going to be spending in half and let's agree on doing a little means testing to medicare, which they're both in favor of and let's not get so focused on absolute dollar figures. i am pretty sure that's not going to happen. >> the clock is ticking. gloria, appreciate it, charles and ross, thank you. a family lost at sea off the coast of san francisco. and a murder trial making the casey anthony look, well, boring. x-rated evidence, too many lies to count. plus a defendant who won a singing contest from prison. it's all bizarre. we'll be right back. obster taco. the bar harbor bake is really worth trying. [ male announcer ] get more during red lobster's lobsterfest. with the year's largest selection of mouth-watering lobster entrees. like our delicious lobster lover's dream, featuring two kinds of succulent lobster tails. or our savory, new grilled maine lobster

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welcome back. rescue teams will work through the night searching the waters off san francisco for a family that radioed the coast guard from their sinking sailboat. this was their final sos call. >> coast guard, coast guard, we are abandoning ship. this is the charm bow. we're abandoning ship. >> that was yesterday afternoon. besides the sailboat's name, the charm bow, coast guard knows there were two adults and two children aboard and they didn't have a life boat. their names, however are a mystery. they're asking for the public's help in identifying them. dan simon joins me now. you have been in touch with the coast guard. what is the latest on the search? >> we know the search will continue throughout the night. they have aircraft up there, boats on the water. they're going to be using infrared technology to see if they can isolate the individuals. they'll reassess things in the morning. we should point out, the water temperature very cold, about 50 degrees. it would be very difficult for anyone to survive. what we don't know is how they abandoned the boat. were they able to get out in a

makeshift life raft. there was no real life raft on board. they mentioned something about a styrofoam cooler and a life rick. ring. perhaps they could use that to get off the boat safely, but again, very chilly in the water. it would be tough for anyone to survive at this point. >> i don't understand how nobody can know who these people are. doesn't somebody own the boat? isn't it registered somewhere? there were other distress calls. what was said on them? >> you know, it's a good question about the boat. at this point, there's no registry for this name, for the boat's name, so some people are speculating this might be a hoax. it would be a good thing if it were a hoax. it would be a very cruel prank. in terms of what the coast guard is saying, they believe this is entirely legit, we should point that out, and the other radio communication, they were able to give an approximate location, that's why the coast guard is where they are, about 65 miles

off the coast of monterrey. there were four people on board, a husband, a wife, their 4-year-old son and a cousin. and they also said the boat was taking on water very quickly and they had to get off. >> if anybody can recognize that voice or has heard the name of that ship, the coast guard would like the information. appreciate the update. up next, crime and punishment and a court trial that has captured the country's attention like no other. the joeds trial, she says it was in self-defense. was the relationship detailed from the witness stand court observers stunned. randi kaye takes an in-depth look ahead.

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in crime and punishment tonight, sex, lies, and audiotape in a murder trial full of testimony that would make perry mason blush. in arizona, jodi arias was

cross-examined again today. it's her tenth day on the witness stand. if she's convicted, by the way, she could get the death penalty. after lying about it to police and in extended interviews, she now admits the murder of her ex-boyfriend in 2008 but she now says that was in self-defense. to say there were surreal moments in the trial are a vast understatement. take this video for instance. while behind bars awaiting trial on first degree murder in 2010 she won a holiday singing contest. ♪ hear the angel voices ♪ oh, night divine >> in the trial itself, there have been countless twists and turns, dirty text messages entered into evidence, nude pictures, audiotape of phone sex between the victim and the defendant played in court. randi kaye reports on the case that has so many people riveted. first, i want to warn you, there are many graphic details woven

through the case which may be too explicit for younger viewers. >> travis alexander never had a chance. 27 stab wounds, a gunshot to the face. his throat slit ear to ear. when friends found his body, he had already been dead five days. >> he's -- he's dead. he's in his bedroom. in the shower. >> so there's blood. is it coming from his head? >> it's all over the place. >> has he been threatened by anyone recently? >> yes, he has. he has an ex-girlfriend who has been bothering him and following him and slashing tires and things like that. >> that ex-girlfriend is jodi arias, now on trial for murdering travis alexander back in 2008. she's facing the death penalty. this case has court watchers riveted. not only because of the sheer brutality of it but also because of the couple's salacious sexual relationship. they videotaped themselves having sex and took provocative photos.

on the day of the murder, june 4th, 2008, the two snapped naked photos of each other at alexander's home, right before the killing. those pictures were recovered from the memory card of a digital camera police found in his washing machine. according to investigators, a photo taken at 1:40 p.m., shows arias posing nude on alexander's bed. later, a photo was taken and deleted, showing alexander naked in the shower. then at 5:30 p.m., another photo of alexander. police say, just two minute later, he was dead. 5:32 p.m., this time stamped photo showed alexander's body on the shower floor. what exactly happened that night is still unclear. in part because investigators can't get a straight or at least consistent story out of arias. the first time she was questioned, july 15th, 2008, arias said she wasn't with alexander the day he died.

this was before she knew investigators had pictures putting her at the crime scene. listen. >> i was nowhere near mesa. i was nowhere near phoenix. >> then, after police matched a bloody handprint at the scene to arias and told her of the photos they had found, she told a different story. this time, a home invasion. >> you didn't run to the neighbors. you didn't try calling. you knew they were in his house. >> i was really scared. i was really freaked out of my mind. >> okay. i don't believe you. >> two years later, in 2010, yet another story. yes, she says, she did kill travis alexander, but it was self-defense. her lawyer is making the case for domestic violence. >> jodi believed that travis was going to kill her. travis left jodi no other option. but to defend herself. >> as arias tells it, it all started with the naked pictures. she testified that while she and

alexander were snapping photos, she dropped the camera and alexander got incredibly angry. so this time she says she grabbed the gun she knew alexander kept in his closet. >> i grabbed the gun, i ran out of the closet. he was chasing me. i turned around. we were in the middle of the bathroom. i pointed it at him with both of my hands. i thought that would stop him. if someone were pointing a gun at me, i would stop. he just kept running. he got like a linebacker. he got kind of low and grabbed my waist. before he did that, as he was lunging at me, the gun went off. i didn't mean to shoot him. >> but what about the knife and those dozens of stab wounds? arias told the court she simply can't remember how that happened. >> once you broke away from him, what do you remember? >> almost nothing for a long time.

>> do you remember stabbing travis alexander? >> i have no memory of stabbing him. >> the couple first met back in 2006 at a convention in las vegas. she was an aspiring photographer. he was a salesman and motivational speaker who was active in the mormon church. they started dating a few months later, even though he lived in mesa, arizona, and she lived hours away in california. arias soon converted to mormonism like her boyfriend and agreed to be baptized. on the day of her baptism, she told the court alexander tied her up while they were still wearing sacred garments and forced her to have anal sex. >> after this encounter on this spiritual day, how did you feel about yourself? >> i didn't feel very good. i kind of felt like was a used

piece of toilet paper. >> arias claims alexander often abused her physically and sexually. but on the couple's phone sex tapes played in court, she seemed to be enjoying herself. >> the way you moan, sounds like a 12-year-old girl having her first orgasm. it's so hot. >> how things turned from phone sex to this is still a mystery, but investigators say there is no question travis alexander suffered. the medical examiner says he was stabbed first, then shot, so it may have taken him some time to die. crime scene photos show his hands bruised and bloody, which may indicate he fought off his attacker, who was stabbing him. in court today under cross-examination, the prosecutor did his best to expose jodi arias as a cold blooded killer and shatter her account of what happened the night alexander was killed. >> other than you, who would be sure of your statements? >> god. >> well, god's not here. we can't subpoena him, right?

>> i don't think so. >> you don't think so. are you sure that we can't? because it seems like you're leaving the door open for that. >> no matter how hard prosecutors come at her, jodi arias has stuck to her story. before the trial, she spoke to "inside edition" from jail. >> no jury is going to convict me. >> why not? >> i'm innocent. you can mark my words on that. >> later in court, she said that was because she planned to kill herself first. randi kaye, cnn, new york. >> fascinating trial. joining me now, jeffrey toobin, and mark geragos, co-author of "mistrial, an inside look at how the criminal justice system works and sometimes doesn't." jeff, the details of the case are different. . have you ever seen a trial sell vised like this? >> i didn't know you could say lube that often on cable it's unbelievable. the thing is, you know, forget

putting it on television. why -- how a judge has allowed this is very interesting. >> how any judge has allowed her to sit on the stand on direct examination this long before even getting to cross is beyond me. 30 years i have been doing this, i have never seen any defendant on the stand this long. >> the reason i think is straightforward, because it's a death penalty case. this is an interesting lesson in why death penalty cases take so long and are so expensive. the judge says, look, this person is on trial for their life. i'm going to let them try their case. i'm not going to really impose the rules of evidence. >> ten days, though. >> i have never heard of anything that long, but clearly, she has a defense, which is that i am a victim of various men. feel sorry for me. don't give me the death penalty. that's the gist. so she's allowed to do it. >> mark, how do you defend somebody who has lied consistently? >> you put her on for ten days or eight days or whatever it is,

and then, you know, in that piece, the package you just did, that prosecutor, was so over the top with that question about, you sure i can't subpoena god, you hope and pray as a defense lawyer the prosecutor is going to lose his mind and start acting like a fool. if that happens, the jury might say at the end of the day, we're going to convict her. clearly, she's guilty, but after this amount of time, we're not going to kill her, because that's really what it comes down to. >> that's what they're trying to do. and they're trying, i think, to get the jury to know this woman in all of her eccentricities, her oddness, her history, and say we're going to lock this woman up, but we will not take the step of imposing the death penalty. >> but she's saying self defense. a throat slit so much the head was almost decapitated. >> that's the vehicle, all of this, whether it's battered woman, self defense, it's just a vehicle, if you will, for the defense to get her up there and try to mitigate and save her from the death penalty. >> her lawyers aren't trying to get her off? >> if they get a not guilty, they'll faint in the courtroom.

>> this is all about a death penalty defense. frankly, since the judge is allowing it, it's probably her best chance because she is emerging as a personality, as someone with a history, who is complicated, who is obviously a mess of a human being, but not someone, at least, that they hope, that the jury says we have to take the absolute maximum step and kill her. >> that's really what it is. you put her up there for that long, what you hope for is that the jury is going to say exactly what jeff was saying, they're going to get to the point where, okay, she's crazy. she did it, we know it. but do we really want to kill her? do we want to put her -- i mean, do we want to put her down? the more you usually familiarity breeds contempt. in this case, it may have the opposite effect. >> do you think the prosecutor has been doing what mark has sort of indicated, that he's making mistakes by going overboard? >> it's very hard to say. that really takes being inside the courtroom and getting a sense of the dynamic.

i think the prosecutor is right to show all of the lies. i mean, what makes her story so, you know, unappealing from a jury perspective, it's not just this fairly bogus self defense argument, but you know, first she wasn't there. then there was an intruder. then she came around to self defense. she's such an obvious and credible liar as well as someone who killed a man. that's what's really -- >> i'll take a shot. they are totally overplaying this. they could have, i think less is more when it comes to this. that being up there, that sarcastic way, that generally does not play well with juries. >> as a defense attorney, i can imagine just watching her talk to police over and over again, giving multiple different stories, and then doing television interviews and saying no jury is going to convict me, from a defense lawyer's standpoint -- >> it's your worst nightmare, but i always tell this to clients.

i give them my card. i say when the police come, write on it, i want my lawyer. it doesn't matter. they still want to talk. they do not understand. i explain this to clients. if the cops lie to you, it's good police work. you lie to them, that's a felony. >> they're allowed to lie to you. >> of course. >> you lie to them, it's a violation of the u.s. code, usually a felony in any other jurisdiction. people have this idea that somehow they're going to talk their way out of it. you can't stop it. >> usually they don't lie as extravagantly as she did. this was off the charts. but you know, who is to say the jury isn't buying it? come on. i just don't know. >> what i can't figure out, the only mystery to me is why cable tv hasn't become fixated on it. >> you don't think they have? >> we're on cable tv right now. >> i want to tell you, it hasn't been wall to wall. >> this is pretty much the first time we have done it, but hln, they've been doing it. >> they need it. >> fascinating stuff. thank you very much.

just ahead, we'll update you on the breaking news, the blizzard pummeling texas and oklahoma. already smashed records. look at the images. chad meyers joins us with the latest on the storm's path. stin, use doctor recommended gaviscon®. only gaviscon® forms a protective barrier that helps block stomach acid from splashing up- relieving the pain quickly. try fast, long lasting gaviscon®. relieving the pain quickly. if youthen this willbrids arbe a nice surprise. meet the 5-passenger ford c-max hybrid. c-max come. c-max go. c-max give a ride to everyone it knows. c max has more passenger volume than competitor prius v and we haven't even mentioned... c-max also gets better mpg. say hi to the super fuel efficient ford c-max hybrid. i honestly loved smoking, and i honestly didn't think i would ever quit.

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more on our breaking news. this is what the texas panhandle is dealing with tonight. record amounts of snow. historic, according to the national weather service. amarillo got 19 inches just today. amarillo, texas. white-out conditions making almost all roads in the

panhandle impassable. stranded motorists waiting for the national guard to show up. that's how bad it is. snow has been coming down fast all day. 2 to 3 inches every hour. oklahoma's also being hard hit. 56 of its counties are under a state of emergency tonight. a lot of motorists stranded there as well. the second major storm to hammer the state in a week. kansas is also in the path. chad meyers joins us with the latest. what are we looking at now? >> >> snow into wichita, eventually maybe an hour or two into kansas city and heavy, then pulling out of texas, out of the oklahoma panhandle, pulling away from where it has snowed so hard. you talk about the stranded motorists, there were emergency vehicles trying to get to those who were stranded who got stranded themselves. that's how quickly it piled up with 5-foot drifts. we're still going to get more snow, but it's going pull out of oklahoma and into kansas and missouri. the heavy snow will be there. there's only one little fly in the forecast of 20 inches or more still to come, a lot of

rain and severe weather along the gulf coast. this rain and severe weather is cutting off some of the moisture, good news, cutting off some of the moisture that could be snow. it's raining the moisture out rather than making snow farther to the north. there's also the potential for some severe weather. the big red boxes there, tornado watch boxes for the next few hours in mississippi, louisiana, even parts of arkansas. some of the winners, if that's the number you want to call it, 19.4, amarillo. the old record, 19.3. >> and air travel will be messed up because of that. thanks very much. let's get caught up on some of the other stories. isha is here. >> "360 follow," the cable contractor suspected of rupturing a natural gas line before last week's deadly restaurant explosion in kansas city was working without a permit. one person was killed and several others were injured in the explosion. the long awaited civil trial against bp and its contractors opened today in new orleans. a federal judge will decide if

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